Pancakes have always been one of my easy favourite breakfasts, imagine that you have to meet up with early morning lectures and yet you have not yet figured out what to eat and you need to eat before moving out for the class since the lecture is going to last for a longer period and you are going to stay till the end of it. In this situation, you dare not consider jollof rice, couscous or macaroni as an option because you dont have all of that time for parboiling, frying and waiting for the liquid to evaporate and all the other blah blah blah. Pancake should definitely be your next choice because it is just simple and easy to make with or without much ingredients.

Pancakes are enjoyable snacks enjoyed by different people all over the world. It can be eaten plain or served with stew, jam, fruits, tea or yoghurt for breakfast or dinner. They are very easy and fun to make.

Here in Nigeria, we are used to just one way of making pancakes, where as there are other ways which this snack can be prepared still by following the same steps which at the end of the fries, the pancakes would come out the same but tasting different from the regular ones. You can switch over from the normal pancakes you know to making different varieties of fruit pancakes to achieve something sweeter by introducing fruit additives to give special flavour to your pancakes.

There are many fruits to try with your pancakes such as avocado, blueberry, strawberry, apple or banana fruitwhich is what am going to use in this recipe. You can use whole wheat flour to make pancakes, using honey in place of sugar, in this case you will be having a low fat whole wheat pancakes with lovely textures.

Ingredients for preparing banana pancake

3 Cups plain flour

2 Large eggs

1 Ball onions (share into two and use one part)

4 Tablespoon sugar

1 Teaspoon baking powder (optional)

1 Teaspoon Chilli pepper or Scotch bonnet

3 Firm but ripe bananas

3 Tablespoons powdered milk or tin milk

1 Cup of water or more

5 Tablespoons vegetable oil or 2 tablespoons butter for frying

A pinch of salt to taste

Before the preparation of banana pancakes

A tray containing sifted flour, milk, sugar, eggs, baking powder and ripe bananas

• If you are using powdered milk, you will need to dissolve it with a little quantity of water.
• Chop your onions into tiny pieces or pound it in a mortar and keep aside.
• Crack the eggs into a bowl and add sugar to it and whisk it till creamy.
• Using a spoon or your hand, smash the banana into a smooth paste and keep aside.
• Measure flour and sift into a large mixing bowl, add a little water to mix till you have a smooth batter. You can use egg whisk to whisk till all the flour incorporate.
• Add the beaten egg, sugar, milk, blended banana, baking powder, a pinch of salt, onions, chilli pepper and whisk till you have a very smooth and runny batter. You can add a little water and keep whisking if it is still very thick.

Already mixed flour batter for frying of pancakes

• To make it quicker, you can pour the flour, egg, sugar, milk, pepper onions and banana into a food processor (blender) and blend at once , it works well also, to avoid unnecessary time wastage.

Steps on how to fry pancakes

1. Drop a frying pan on heat to make itt dry. Bring it off from heat and grease the inside of the pan with vegetable oil or butter and drop the pan back on a medium heat.

Flour batter taking the shape of the frying pan

2.Using a soup spoon, scoop 2- 3 spoons of the batter into the pan on heat and gently swirl or tilt the batter round the pan till it forms a circular shape to produce a nice even layer. You may pour the batter directly to the frying pan without having to scoop with a spoon, but it should be in little amount because the amount of batter you scoop into the frying pan will determine the size of pancakes you will get after the fries.

Vegetable oil being spread round the edges of the batter to prevent it from sticking to the pan

3.When it starts to form bubbles and the edges appear dry, spread table spoon of vegetable oil around the edges facing the pan to prevent it from sticking to the pan when you want to flip over to the other side.

pancake being fliped over to the second side, to enable it cook as well

4. Leave one side of the pancake to cook for about 30 seconds before turning over to the other side. Use a tablespoon or a knife to lift the side facing the pan to see if it lightly brown before turning over to the other side.

5. If you notice one side lightly brown, turn it over and spread table spoon of vegetable oil round the edges between the pancake and the pan to prevent it from sticking to the pan. Allow it to cook for 30 seconds too.

already fried fried pancakes with date palms

6.When both sides are completely golden, remove into a serving plate. Do the same to the remaining pancake mixture in the bowl till you are completely done with the whole batter.

You can serve your pancakes with yoghurt or any smoothie of your choice.

Pancakes served with milk

NOTE THE FOLLOWING:

• Baking powder gives pancake a fluffy, light and airy texture, you can choose not to use baking powder at all when making pancakes.
• Aside banana, you can use other fruits like avocado, blueberry, apple, chocolate, strawberry or groundnuts to make pancakes after blending them. They provide nice flavour and taste to the pancakes different from the regular pancakes we are familiar with.
• Pancakes are sweeter to make with heavy based pan. If you don’t have that you can still use the light based frying pan but you have to watch at it closely so as not to get burnt.
• Butter makes pancakes to get burn easily, because it is a bit sticky.Vegetable oil , coconut oil, olive oil and sun flower oil are most preferred because they are much lighter.